Multilingual website SEO best practices

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Multilingual websites are an indispensable tool for any company seeking to expand internationally. By allowing users to view your website in their language of choice, you’re making it that much easier for current and potential customers to interact and engage with your brand. With an optimized user experience (UX), you’ll see more conversions for greater sales and profitability in your new market.

The process of creating a multilingual website is not without its own unique set of challenges and demands. Due to their intended use in a variety of languages and locations, there are special factors to consider that wouldn’t necessarily apply when creating a more standard site. When built correctly, however, the potential benefits they provide will greatly outweigh any additional expenses and effort required to build them.

With multilingual websites, it’s always going to be easier and more cost-effective to build the website correctly the first time. The worst mistake one can make is to rush through the planning stages, only to find that extra revisions are needed later on down the line.

Consider these tips when planning your next multilingual website to ensure you get things right from the beginning.

Source: Valuebound.com

Invest in your translation and transcreation.

Given the increased costs required for internationalization, it can be tempting to plug your content into an auto-translator and call it a day. We can’t emphasize enough how detrimental of a decision this will be to your ongoing success in your new market. If you take one thing away from this piece, let it be this—don’t rely on software to handle your translation.

The best option is to pass the responsibility to a professional transcreation team. When you transcreate, you rebuild your content from the ground up in your target language. It’s a more organic process than direct translation that will result in an intuitive experience for your users.

Whether you choose to outsource this responsibility to a third-party specialist, or handle it in-house, the key is to ensure the new content is created by a native speaker of your target language. They’ll be able to reimagine your website in a natural way that’s most conducive to helping your new readers convert.

Make language choices clear.

If you plan to allow users to select a language, make sure this option is clearly visible. Many sites opt for an easy-to-use drop-down menu somewhere in the header or footer. List the name of each language using its respective local name, as opposed to the name for it in your language.

While it’s common to see websites also using flags to denote languages, this is not always a recommended practice. Flags represent countries, not languages, and while many countries do have official languages, there are often significant populations for whom that language is not their native tongue.

If possible, enable your website to auto-detect a user’s language of choice. It’s better to do this via browser language as opposed to location, however, as the former does not account for travel or other similar circumstances.

[caption id="attachment_5291" align="alignnone" width="1022"] Ctrip has a convenient drop-down menu with local language names, but it also uses flags. Source: Ctrip.com[/caption]

Plan your structure in advance.

Iron out every detail of your website in advance, so when it’s transcreation time, there are zero ambiguities or do-overs. Know how your multilingual functions will be implemented, and which parts of your website will be available in which target languages. Familiarize yourself with the cultural norms and expectations of your target group so as to ensure your site design takes them into account.

You’ll want to present an end-user experience that’s intuitive and familiar, while also adhering at all times to your overall brand aesthetic. It may not be feasible for you to create a brand-new website for each market, but do be aware of cultural differences when conceptualizing your page.

Other factors you’ll want to account for include local internet speeds, currencies, address formats, 12/24-hour time and cultural symbols and sensitivities. Make it as easy as possible for users to imagine themselves as users of your site by shaping your site to cater to their worldview and lifestyle.

Power distance reflects extent to which members of a society accept an unequal distribution of power as a de facto element of life. Wealth disparities, political agency or lack thereof, and social hierarchies are all facets of how power might be distributed and exercised in a given country.

The Power Distance Index (PDI) assigns a numerical score to each country based on the degree to which individuals there embrace or reject the notion of a hierarchical society. Countries with a higher PDI may have substantial wealth gaps, unequal access to services, and a top-down concentration of political power. Conversely, countries with […] Read more

Hofstede’s dimension of uncertainty avoidance refers to a society’s general tolerance of ambiguity or the unknown. This is reflected in the extent to which a given culture will utilize rules, societal norms and standardized procedures to reduce uncertainty with regard to future events, decisions or occurrences.

The Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) assigns numerical scores to quantify the level of uncertainty avoidance held by individuals in various countries. People in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance prefer to minimize uncertainty with careful planning and regulation as well as a reliance on tradition. Conversely, cultures with low uncertainty avoidance are more open to change […] Read more

Polish people are very proud of their language. In fact, they’re so proud local copywriters are instructed to avoid using English parasite words. Nevertheless, there might be some words which sound familiar to the English ear, but don’t get excited too soon.

Looking for new global marketing opportunities? Thought of expanding to Africa or Southeast Asia? In March we focused on helping you realize the global potential of your products and services. Did you know that China is a leading target market for luxury goods? But Western luxury brands wouldn’t be succeeding without properly adapting their marketing strategy. Check out our favorite blog posts from March and get fresh International SEO ideas:

Ready to expand your products and services to Southeast Asia? Can’t afford to hire a team of translators to localize your website? No problem. In some countries English will suffice for a good jump start. In the following post we’ll examine in which Southeast Asian countries it’s enough to only have an English website version.

Our grandmother used to say: “Go to school and study, so you won’t end up working at McDonald’s.” Working behind the McDonald’s counter has always had a negative connotation. But when the financial crisis broke out our grandmother’s changed her tune to: “As long as you have a job, even if it’s at McDonald’s.”

Language is the most powerful tool when communicating a message. At GFluence we’re interested in different cultural habits and matching them with consumer analysis. By analyzing the McDonald’s jobs sub-page titles across countries, we can tell where baking burgers counts as a real profession or […] Read more

Did you know that Africa is the continent with the most French speakers in the world? Why is this important for your International SEO? Even though you have a french language website version – are you only targeting people who live in France? OK, you thought of Belgium, Switzerland and Canada as well, good. But there is aprox. 120 million people in Africa who speak French. Such an enormous amount of people knowing the same language is a perfect global marketing opportunity.

Many articles have been written about the psychology behind Call to Action (CTA) buttons. Current research included everything from color analysis to the style of language comparisons of CTA buttons. However, fewer content is devoted to a direct language comparison across different nations and cultures.

At GFluence we are interested in international campaigns gone bad or at those which “hit the spot“. Through an in depth analysis of cultural factors influencing the success of global marketing strategies we love to show you what international SEO is really about. We took a detailed look at one Amazon, one […] Read more

With valuation at around $25 billion, Airbnb is one of the biggest private companies (still start-ups?) in the world. With presence in 191 countries, it sure did some spectacular international marketing maneuvers. The question is, which exactly? This is what we are about to find out today.

They speak the language… most of them actually

Currently Airbnb is available in 26 languages. And the level of detail of every translation is definitely something to be admired of. Heck, site even changes vacation to holiday depending on the UK or US English. Devil is in the details, folks. Additionally, […] Read more